“When someone tells you there’s nothing out there to see, tell them to see The Record Company.” Truer words could not have been spoken by Chris Vos (guitar and vocals) at The Record Company’s recent stop at Park West, the 1,000-person concert venue in Chicago, Illinois. The band, which also consists of Alex Stiff (bass) and Marc Cazorla (drums), has been a “must-see” live band for years. With Cazorla’s pulsating beat, Stiff’s chugging bass lines and Vos’s dynamic stage presence – prowling and cavorting around the stage when not manning his lap steel slide guitar – The Record Company always deliver memorable and highly-charged performances. The current tour in support of the band’s fourth studio album, the aptly titled The 4th Album, is no different. (ABS review)
Each night is a prize fight. Every minute intense. At Park West, The Record Company came out swinging from the initial bell with a one-two punch of the rollicking and foot-stomping “Feels So Good” from Give it Back to You (the band’s 2016 debut) and the bass-driven thumper “Dance on Mondays” from The 4th Album. Lest anyone have time to catch their breath or wipe their brow, though, the next blows were delivered immediately with one of the band’s biggest hits – “Rita Mae Young” – followed by the jubilant “The Movie Song” from 2018’s All of this Life and the harmonica-driven rocker “On the Move” from Give it Back to You.
Even the acoustic numbers from The 4th Album which followed – “Control My Heart Blues” and “I Found Heaven (In My Darkest Days)” – were delivered with the ferocity of a backwoods brawl. It’s a brawl that continued throughout the evening as Vos, Stiff and Cazorla continued to land punch after punch with a 17-song set that included “Highway Lady” and “Roll With It” from The 4th Album; “Turn Me Loose” and “Off the Ground” from Give it Back to You; “Life to Fix” and “I’m Getting Better (And I’m Feeling It Right Now)” from All of this Life; “How High” from Play Loud; and their 2017 single “Baby, I’m Broken.” If that were not enough, the guys threw in two fabulous covers: The Grateful Dead’s “Easy Wind” and the Beastie Boys’ “So What’cha Want.”
The sold-out crowd at Park West matched Vos, Stiff and Cazorla’s intensity all night with an exuberance that may give their former record label pause for dropping the band following 2021’s Play Loud. Yes, that album arguably ventured too far afield from the band’s roots with its more polished production and a tour that increased the band’s size to a quintet. But The 4th Album is a return to form, delivering a more stripped-back and raw blues rock sound that not only harkens back to the band’s first two albums, but also proves the old axiom that “sometimes less is more.” That is certainly the case with The Record Company who excel when it is simply Vos, Stiff and Cazorla in the ring.
Their victories are not measured by how clean they emerge, but rather how hard they fight. Bruised, bloodied and battered. Dirt and grime trickling down their faces from the sweat. That is The Record Company sound. And when they are in town, there is always something to see. For more information on the band, The 4th Album and the current tour, check out The Record Company website here.
All images: © Derek Smith / High Voltage Concert Photography for American Blues Scene
